


Football

by Laramie



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Happy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 03:15:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3920893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laramie/pseuds/Laramie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jimmy honestly hadn't meant to break next door's window, it had just sort of... happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Football

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to fuckyeah-thommy for the amazing AU gifset, linkworshiper for asking why it wasn't being written and thereby prompting me to do so, and abbys-jam-juggler because this is sort of an age gap fic or at least probably as close as I'll ever get to writing one.

Jimmy honestly hadn't _meant_ to break next door's window, it had just sort of… happened.

Okay so he _had_ been kicking a football around the street at the time, but he had just finished his last piece of A-level course work so he should be allowed to have some fun, right?

Okay so _maybe_ he had spent a lot of time outside Thomas's house specifically, but he was doing keepy-uppies at the time and that was a fairly stationary activity. And maybe he'd been hoping, just a little bit, that Thomas was watching. His neighbour had mentioned being on nights this week, so he was probably asleep, but he had also said that he had terrible trouble sleeping in the day.

And alright so _maybe_ Jimmy had kicked the ball in the direction of Thomas's front door, in the hopes that _maybe_ Thomas would come out to see what was up and be so taken with Jimmy's artfully wavy hair and awesome ball (haha) skills that he decided to stay for a kickabout with him…

But really, it was a complete accident that Jimmy was startled by a blackbird just as he made the shot, and had to watch as the ball sailed straight through Thomas's front window with a crash.

The window shattered, and broken glass fell to the floor with a tinkling sound.

Jimmy froze on the pavement and gazed at the disaster, open-mouthed.

God. Thomas was going to hate him. The guy had only moved in a fortnight ago, he'd had a grand total of two conversations with Jimmy when Jimmy had flirted for all he was worth, and now Jimmy had gone and smashed his front bloody window.

Jimmy heard Thomas swearing through his open bedroom window and gazed up at the curtained window, horror-stricken.

 _Alright, Jimmy Kent_ , he told himself. _Brazen it out._

He strode up to the front door and knocked firmly. The door was soon swung open, to reveal an agitated Thomas looking attractively bed-tousled.

"I take it this is you!" he said immediately, pointing an accusatory finger at Jimmy and leaving the door open as he detoured to the living room to inspect the damage.

Jimmy took the unspoken invitation to step inside. He closed the door quietly behind him as Thomas said loudly: "Oh, bloody 'ell, look at the mess!"

Jimmy wiped his shoes on the mat and glanced around the hall; the house was laid out the same as his own next door, but the hall was still regulation magnolia instead of their own powder blue, and it was scattered with moving boxes rather than an assortment of coats, shoes and nature prints.

"Haven't you finished unpacking yet?" Jimmy asked as he wandered into the front room.

Thomas waved a hand at him distractedly, still examining his window. "I 'aven't had time, I'm at the hospital all hours. What were you doing, anyway?"

Jimmy smiled, trying to look charming. "I had a slight mishap with a bird."

"Jesus Christ." Thomas scrubbed a hand through the back of his hair.

Jimmy screwed up his courage. "I like your hair like that." His heart beat in the back of his throat.

"I've gotta be at work in two hours, how am I going to get this fixed?"

"Sorry," Jimmy said. "I-I was sort of aiming for your front door, to see if you were awake."

"Well, you missed."

"Look, I wanna make it up to you."

"Oh, you're gonna make it up to me alright."

Jimmy was almost intimidated, but then he realised that Thomas was no longer shouting.

"You can start by filling my hole in the window."

 _I'm staying over here for a while then_ , Jimmy thought, and smiled at his feet.

"There's a load of cardboard hangin' about. Then you can clean up all this bloody mess you've made! And then, when you're done, you can invite me over to your place… and we can call it… a date."

Jimmy couldn't help it; he grinned. "I think I can manage that," he said. "Where's your duct tape?"

 _Well_ , Jimmy thought. _That rather worked out as I'd hoped._

**Author's Note:**

> Yeahhh so I'm not sure about Jimmy owning up to how exactly the window-smashing came about but it just felt too squicky without it; Thomas needed another nudge, I felt, before he started hitting on a college student.
> 
> FTR, Jimmy is 18, Thomas is about 22. You can get grants for learning and a close-to-guaranteed job as an ODP with the NHS, so that's what this Thomas has done. (It's what my sister did and she was renting by about age 22.)


End file.
